The neuropathology research sector includes a Brain Bank and a Neuropathology Laboratory.

Brain Bank

As the name implies, this is a "fruitful deposit", usable in scientific terms, of brain tissue from subjects who are well known and evaluated during their lifetime.  The increasing number of such banks in other countries is already producing a vast research literature and foreshadows more and more concretely that neuropathological research in the context of a Brain Bank will be fundamental for furthering the molecular mapping of the brain and discovering mechanisms underlying neurological diseases.

The particular characteristic of our Bank is that of being developed within a geriatric institute, thus favoring the study of brain aging. This is one of the most studied topics for some time, given the importance of neurological diseases that occur with age: Alzheimer's and primary degenerative dementias, Parkinson's and extrapyramidal diseases, cerebral vasculopathies.

The bank attached to a geriatric institute has a natural access to this pathology, because it is certain that all the inmates of the institute participate to some extent in some of these diseases.  The peculiarity of the "Golgi" project lies in the possibility of creating a bank of brains of people classifiable as "mental normals", which are almost absent today and are very useful for comparing and drawing general conclusions in the study of the relationship between morphology, pathology and mental functions.

Laboratory of Neuropathology

Studies morphological and histological aspects of pathological and normal brain tissue; therefore, uses the same material as the Bank.